


No Man is an Island

by MartineBishop



Category: Death in Paradise
Genre: F/M, Short One Shot, maybe PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 09:53:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13855344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MartineBishop/pseuds/MartineBishop
Summary: Camille runs out of patience and Richard out of arguments.(Set after Series 2, Ep. 8)





	No Man is an Island

**Author's Note:**

> Just a snippet because Richard really needs to get that stick out of his backside. Bit of a PWP, I guess, but not too explicit.

“A _shirt_?” Richard holds the button-up shirt at arm’s length like it’s contagious. It has a flowery pattern of yellow and green and – God forbid – _pink_.  
    Camille shrugs with one shoulder. The sun sets behind Richard and she has to blink and shield her eyes from its golden glare with one hand. The other one is hidden behind her back “You said the airline lost your luggage” she tells him lightly.  
     Richard sighs heavily and tosses the garish piece over the balustrade of his porch. “Please don’t tell me you hide a pair of matching pants behind your back”.  
    Camille rolls her eyes at him and instead produces a bottle of rum. Well. It’s not flower-pants, but it isn’t much better.  
    “We should celebrate” Camille states. She sets down the bottle on the low table with a decisive _thud_ and heads inside for his kitchen.  
    Richard eyes the bottle of amber liquid. It has a fancy, embossed label with golden letters. The stopper is sealed with real wax. It looks very expensive. Has Camille bought it, for him? No, he decides, she had rather pilfered it from behind her mother’s bar. Richard snorts as Camille returns with two glasses and a corkscrew. The setting sun catches in the fringes of her curls and makes them look as if she wears a halo. For a moment, Richard is fascinated by the play of light.  
    “Sir?” Camille asks him and wiggles the corkscrew before his face.  
    “What, you want me to do all the work in this heat?”. Richard sneers but snatches the tool from Camille’s hand nonetheless. She puts down the glasses on the table and drags two chairs beside it while Richard wrestles with the bottle’s stopper.  
    “You know, it would help if you lose the jacket” Camille offers.  
    Richard glares at her. “If that is your plan to get me to wear that pink-and-yellow horror you brought, I have you know that it’s hereby foiled”.  
    Camille sighs but a smile stays on her lips as she obverses him while he pulls the cork out of the bottle. He pours two glasses obediently and hands one to Camille who had sat down in one of the chairs. Richard lowers himself in the other.  
    “To coming home” Camille says and lifts her glass. She regards him, her dark eyes veiled. She often looks at him like that, Richard thinks, as if she wants to say something more, but decides against it just before she opens her mouth.  
    “To coming home _someday_ ” Richards corrects her. Camille sips the rum carefully. Richard puts his glass down without tasting it.  
    “Hey! That rum is from Saint-Marie’s best distillery!” Camille shoots him a long, suffering look.  
    “What, did you think I would _actually_ partake in your drinking?” Richard retorts. He folds his arms. “I can still taste that last cup of English Breakfast tea I had at Heathrow. I intend to keep it that way as long as possible”.  
    Camille groans. “Suit yourself” she says. She downs the last drops of her rum unceremoniously and puts the empty glass beside Richard’s.  
    Richard stares out at the gently rolling sea. If he squints just right, he can imagine looking at the English Channel from the southern coast. Except that the beautiful island he calls his home isn’t trying to suffocate him with a never-ending heat-wave.  
    ”What are we celebrating?” Richard asks Camille without looking at her, mostly to distract himself from the sudden wave of homesickness.  
    “What?” she replies.  
    He turns his head towards her. Camille has kicked off her shoes and put her feet against the railing’s wooden beams, tipping her chair back on its legs.  
    “You said we should celebrate” Richard repeats.  
    Camille gives him one of her secret half-smiles and cocks her head. “Well, _I’m_ celebrating that you came back after all” she says. “And since you refuse my gifts, I get to mark the occasion. Even if I celebrate by myself, it seems”.  
    Richard sniffs and shrugs. He doesn’t know how to reply, as so often. Camille looks at him silently, intently, and Richard tugs at his tie. That bloody island has gotten warmer while he was away, he could swear.  
    “Vous ne manquez jamais quelque chose jusqu'à ce qu'il soit parti” Camille says. Richard doesn’t understand it, of course. French; sounds like all the words in a sentence are glued together. But sometimes, Richard forgets that and he only hears Camille’s smooth voice and doesn’t need to know the words.  
     “It’s a saying. ‘You never miss something until it’s gone’” Camille translates for him anyway. Her faint French accent smooths the words even when she speaks English. “Admit it. You _did_ miss Saint-Marie. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have come back. Am I right?”. She grins at him and rocks back and forth, pushing herself off the balustrade with her feet.  
     “I sure as hell didn’t miss the heat” Richard tells her. “Or the sand. Or the garish beer. Or the fashion, for that matter”. He rolls his shoulders as he begins to sweat under the heavy jacket. London was still cold, and he had donned a warm outfit. A decision that came back to bite him, it seems.  
     Camille puts her feet back on the ground suddenly. She pushes herself up and steps towards the balustrade, resting her forearms on the railing. Over her shoulder she regards Richard.  
    “Come on, Richard. What made you come back?” she teases him. Her voice is soft, and she blurs the words together.  
     He missed that, Richard realizes. He missed Camille’s accent. It becomes clear only now that he hears it again. But he cannot find the words to tell her. He never could, and it hasn’t changed now. Instead, he stares at her, mute and rigid. She rests her head on her shoulder as she observes his discomfort and Richard wrecks his brains for a way to change the topic. But he can’t think of anything else except for the shimmer of setting sun on Camille’s dark skin and the way her loose dress falls around her body. Richard swallows against the restraint of his tie.  
    Camille turns around and Richard realizes that she knows the answer already. She has known it the moment he walked into her mother’s bar earlier. He’s a rather good inspector, so details don’t elude him, even if he’s not on a case. It’s just an occupational habit, really, to notice how her eyes had lit up, how she had sat up straighter in her chair. He had noticed the balloons and the sign she has put up, the new dress. Just an annoying habit. But he doesn’t know why she’s still here now and why she looks at him like that. Her dark eyes seem to hide all the many things Richard had always failed to notice about women in the first place. His talents lie elsewhere, and he is no fool to assume otherwise.  
      “I need you to put together a report about what happened on Saint-Marie while I was in London. First thing in the morning, Camille. And I intend to start early as I have a lot of catching up to do. The team should be there, too. I’m jet-lacked, I should get a good night’s –“ and that is as far as he gets before Camille leans over him, her hands clamping down on his shoulders. Even he can read the withering look she gives him, and he slinks down under her hard eyes.  
    “Richard Poole. You are the single most … _English_ person I know” she tells him exasperatedly. “There isn’t a single murder on the island and what little has happened in the past days takes maybe ten minutes to recount. So, for the love of all the Gods, Richard, just this once, _relax_ ”. Camille puts her weight into her arms and manages to push him down even further. Her eyes bear no argument. A wind picks up and blows her hair against Richard’s cheek. He blinks rapidly. The wind also sends him the smell of her perfume, a note of citrus and coconut. She smells like the island herself, he thinks. The way she leans over him lets him see the swell of her breasts. Richard drags his eyes from her cleavage, embarrassed that he had stared. He makes a point to look Camille in the face instead. But that isn’t much better. She is far too close. He can feel the heat of her body over the heat of the island. Her lips are slightly apart, her eyes have gone softer.  
    “Now, don’t take that the wrong way, _Sir-_ ” Camille warns him as she starts to fumble with his tie. Her fingers sneak under the knot and pull it loose, her thumb flips under his collar-button and pops it open easily. Richard wants to draw a breath, because she is right, of course; this does feel more liberating. But he’s afraid to, because he would smell her scent more prominently then. And he doesn’t know if he can take it. Instead, he takes a small and shaky breath and licks his dry lips. He doesn’t dare move. She can’t know the effect she has on him, he can never let her know. He’s a grown man of over forty, an accomplished detective and the woman above him makes his body ache like a teenager’s. Richard draws his lips into a line and determinedly suffers Camille’s administrations. She tousles his hair with a smile that fleetingly chases over her full lips.  
    “We make a local of you yet” she murmurs happily. She adjusts her stance and her left hand falls on his upper thigh, just below where his pants crease and Richard draws in a loud, sharp breath.  
      And then it’s too late to fake or explain, because Camille knows. Her eyes dart back to his and he is sure she sees his dilated pupils, unnatural against the setting sun’s glare. Camille holds his eyes as she moves her hand ever so very slightly on his thigh, up and towards the right and it’s enough to make Richard gasp audibly. He holds onto the armrests like a lifeline, his knuckles standing out starkly white even against the pallor of his skin. He squeezes his eyes shut because he can’t look at Camille, not like this, not when he comes apart like -  
     “Richard” Camille says softly and waits until he dares to look at her once more. He concentrates on her chin instead of her eyes, though. “It’s all right”.  
     And then her mouth is on his, soft and full and sensual as she eases him into a lingering kiss. Richard closes his eyes and feels his sharp, fast breaths burst against Camille’s lips. She pries his lips apart with her tongue as she pries his legs apart with her hand. Richard knows he can’t stop his body’s betrayal any longer. He shifts his hips slightly, but the strain against the fabric of his pants doesn’t ease. He feels the heat collect in his loins and the agonizing brush of Camille’s hand. The sensation of her kiss wars with what she does with her fingers, dizzying him.  
     Richard drags his head to the side and breaks the kiss. “Camille – don’t … “ he pants in one last, futile effort to save himself from complete embarrassment. But Camille only shakes her head.  
      Richard has never been a ladies’ man. The few awkward attempts he had made at courting or lovemaking had always been half-hearted and had not been exactly satisfying tor either party. When he had found his calling as police inspector, he had let his profession overrule his desires. That had worked fine, as long as he had been in London; isolated and avoided by the colleagues of either gender, there had been a mutual understanding.  
     And then came Saint-Marie. And Camille Bordey. And with all of it, painfully lonely nights spent tossing and turning and only some of them he could blame on the heat. Never had Richard been so starkly reminded that he had urges and desires than when Camille is with him, observing him with those dark, dark eyes.  
     And now his Sergeant leans over him and places her palm right where his sanity hangs by a thread and he gives in, then, because he can admit that he wants this. Camille slides into his lap and the hand that isn’t between his legs sneaks around his shoulders and she presses herself close to him. Her breasts heave against his chest and her breath comes quickly against his neck. Richard is surprised how much this affects her, too and feels himself slipping towards the edge even faster because of it.  
     Their bodies rock back and forth like this, finding a rhythm, and the sweat that drenches their clothes mixes. Richard has closed his eyes and given in to Camille’s strokes and caresses, pushing him past a point where he cannot return. Camille mumbles something, breathlessly and in French, her voice dark and coarse and it’s perhaps this, more than anything, that drags him over the edge and he muffles a groan against Camille’s hair, digging his fingertips into the soft skin between her shoulder blades as she nurses him steadily through his climax. He rides it out panting into her locks, trying not to think how he must have ruined his pants. His _only_ pair.  
     When Richard’s breathing slows gradually, Camille leans back to look at him. He lowers his head, shame creeping in mercilessly where desire had been spent. Richard drags a hand over his face and leaves it to cover his eyes. He stoically ignores the wetness between his legs. “Please leave now” he whispers, turning his head away from Camille.  
     She huffs and tries to pry his hand from face. He resists her attempts for a while but gives in in the end. “What are you so embarrassed about, Richard?” she asks, still breathless. “This is normal. This is human. _We_ are human”.  
     “You didn’t have to do that” he tells her, sounding small. He keeps his head turned away from her, not daring to look her in the eyes.  
     “ _Have to_?” she asks him indignantly. “No, I didn’t _have to_. I _wanted_ to. Are you truly so blind?”.  
     Richard is surprised by her vehemence and he looks up. Camille leans forward and places her lips on his. The kiss holds no urgency and no demand, only unveiled affection. It’s a slow kiss, and Richard feels himself relax into it despite himself. He encircles Camille’s waist experimentally and she leans in a little closer. He feels her smile against his lips and she gradually deepens the kiss, putting her own urgency behind it. Smooth like a feline, she entangles herself from him and gets up, holding out a hand to him and arching her eyebrows. Richard feels utterly helpless and can’t think of anything else but to put his palm in hers.  
  
When Camille pushes him unceremoniously down on his bed, Richard fleetingly thinks that he has never slept with anyone in broad daylight. He had always found it somehow safer with the lights off and in darkness. But the sun hasn’t set yet and its rays illuminate Camille’s chocolate skin, flawless and exotic. Camille moves over him and straddles his hip between her knees. She pulls her dress over her head in a swift motion. Richard swallows.  
      “To think of the lengths I have to go to get you out of your stupid suit” Camille tells him sternly as she leans over him and unfastens the rest of his shirt’s buttons. Richard stares at her in confusion, but she rolls her eyes and visibly suppresses a smile. “You still don’t believe me? That I want you?”.  
    “You want -?” Richard stammers and briefly thinks that this is perhaps only one of his dreaded dreams.  
    “Well, my body does perhaps not show it as clearly as yours … “ she says and lets the sentence trail away. She shifts her hip against Richard instead and he thinks he knows what she means.  
     Camille’s fingers find the clasp of his belt and the zipper of his pants and he somehow wiggles out of them, too until he lies under her, naked and feeling thoroughly exposed. Camille unfastens her bra and climbs out of her panties. She doesn’t seem to be self-conscious about her body. But then again, Richard thinks, a woman like her has no reason to. He glances down at his own pale self, scrawny hairs on his chest, perhaps a few kilos too much.  
     Camille stretches out half on top of him, half next to him. He turns to face her, marvelling at the mesmerizing contrast of her dark skin against his white body. And marvelling more at the possibility of this very moment. She pushes up against him, slowly, but enough to make him respond again. Then she takes his hand in her own.  
      “You’re a brilliant man, Inspector Poole” she tells him, not quite steadily. “But I think there are yet a few things for you to learn”.  
     And with that, she guides him through their night. Without shame, Camille steers Richard’s hands to where she wants to be touched, to all the secret spots on her body that he never dared to even look at. Richard closes his eyes at some point and gives himself over to her lead, doing to her what she asks him to do. Her voice is always gentle and low but begins to crack and turn into a half-moan at some point. Richard’s body has long since responded and this time, and he doesn’t feel ashamed. When she opens her legs for him, their union is easy and fulfilling in a way Richard had given up hope to ever experience. He moves inside her, and she moves herself along him, and time becomes a hazy abstract Richard can no longer follow. He spends himself inside of her, and the longer he’s finally allowed to hold her close against his body, the more reluctant he becomes to ever let go.  
     Sleep finds them eventually, on sweaty and stained sheets, when they separate for a moment to breathe. But Camille’s hand remains in Richard’s open palm, as if she’s afraid to let go of him completely.  

When Richard comes awake, he has no idea what time it is, as all his watches are still in the unopened luggage. He turns over to lie on the side. Camille sleeps half curled up on top of the sheets next to him, like a large dark cat. The mosquito net that surrounds them is a hazy filter against the night. Or perhaps against the real world. The moon that shines through the open shutters of his hut is tipping towards the horizon. It’s large enough to illuminate the room so Richard can make out details. He rolls on his back and heaves a breath. Now what? They would have to get up in the morning, go to the police station, return to work in the team. He is still Camille’s superior. How can they keep this up? Does Camille even _want_ to? A hand creeps across his chest and drags him away from his dreary thoughts. Camille lifts her head. He can see the white in her open eyes.  
    “If you want to leave, I can see you home” Richard suggests lamely.  
    Camille lets her head drop back onto the mattress with a groan. “Richard Poole!” she exclaims “One more statement like this and I swear I will make sure you’ll have nothing to wear but pink and purple onesies for a fortnight!”. She props herself up on her elbow and glares at Richard. “I will say it clearly, so even your English brain will understand it: I want to be here. Now. I want to continue to be here for many, many nights. Preferably for the rest of my life. Do you understand this?”.  
     Richard stares at her wordlessly, trying to process the impact of what she told him. She has angled her face slightly away from him and he thinks that she might be blushing. She holds herself very stiffly.  
Then, without really thinking, he tells her: “I came back for _you_ , Camille”.  
     The strain rushes from her body visibly. Richard takes heart and closes the space between them. He pulls her up against his body, a tad awkwardly, but Camille follows his tugging. She lines up their bodies and closes the gaps, resting her head on his shoulder. “That is what I wanted to hear all day” she tells him softly, and Richard thinks, that this is what he wanted to tell her since he left Saint-Marie.  
     Camille sighs against him contently. “Aucun homme n'est une île, Richard” she murmurs against his skin. “Et je t’aime très fort, mon fou”.  
    Richard listens to her alien French words, so utterly incomprehensible to him.

**Author's Note:**

> In case it's not clear from the story's title: Camille's French at the end is translated to: "No man is an island, Richard. I love you very much, my fool" (at least I hope Google and I got that right ;))


End file.
